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Airbus A-321, Russian airliner that crashed had little record of major problems

Airbus A321 that crashed Saturday killing 224 on board had almost no record of problems since it was first flown 18 years ago and the tragedy was the first fatal crash for the Russian airliner, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

The Airbus A321 that crashed Saturday killing all 224 on board had almost no record of problems since it was first flown 18 years ago and this was first fatal crash for Metrojet, the Russian airline operating the aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

The plane was en route from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, Russia, when it crashed 23 minutes into the flight. Rescuers found wreckage littering the desert and strewn bodies, many of them still strapped in their seats.

A history of aircraft posted by the Aviation Safety Network, a private and independent website of the non-profit Flight Safety Foundation tha tracks aviation accidents. shows the only incident involving the aircraft was a tail-strike accident that occurred in 2001 during a landing in Cairo.

The airline said the pilot, identified by Russian media as Nemov Valery Yuryevich, had 12,000 hours of flying experience, with 30% of that at the controls of an A-321 Airbus. Metrojet said in a statement that the required factory maintenance of the aircraft was carried out last year.

The A321-200 jet that crashed is the largest version of the Airbus twin-engine A320 series that is capable of seating 240 passengers, according to a statement issued Saturday by the manufacturer. The plane had accumulated more than 56,000 fight hours in nearly 21,000 flights, Airbus said.

That model aircraft, which went into production in 1994, has been involved in only other fatal crash when a Airblue A-321 flew into the side of a mountain during an approach to an airport in Islamabad, Pakistan on July 28, 2010. All 152 aboard were killed and the crash was blamed on a combination of weather conditions and pilot error.